Company to pay $1.7M for abandoning toxic equipment

A now-defunct corporation has been sentenced in a Bay City federal court for abandoning a transformer containing PCBs at its Hamburg facility near Whitmore Lake.

The former Hoskins Manufacturing Co., now known has HSKM Inc., was sentenced on its guilty plea on Nov. 14 in U.S. District Court in Bay City, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.

The company pleaded guilty in July to one count of violating the Toxic Substances Control Act, said Acting U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg. He did not indicate if company officials were part of the guilty plea; a U.S. attorney spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.

Hoskins once had facilities in Mio, Charlevoix and Hamburg. Information filed with the court charged that the company abandoned a non-leaking transformer containing polychlorinated biphenyls at its Hamburg facility, which constitutes improper disposal under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

PCBS are bioaccumulative chemicals known to cause cancer in animals and health problems in humans; their manufacture was banned in the U.S. in 1977.

Hoskins became the focus of a joint investigation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Quality after EPA Superfund emergency response teams responded to the three abandoned Michigan manufacturing sites in 2003 and 2004, officials said.

As part of a plea agreement between the corporation and the U.S. Attorney's Office, a judge placed the company on probation for a year and ordered the payment of $1.7 million in restitution to partially offset the emergency response costs.

The corporation also was ordered to publish an apology in various periodicals, reminding other manufacturers of the obligation to comply with environmental protection laws.